The mind–body problem asks whether the mind is something over and above the body or is entirely physical. Dualists, with Descartes, hold that the mind is a distinct, non-physical reality; physicalists hold that mental states are physical states or are wholly fixed by them. Each side inherits a standing difficulty: the dualist must explain how a non-physical mind can act on the body at all, and the physicalist how conscious experience can be nothing more than physical activity.
Philosophy of Mind
The Mind–Body Problem
Is the mind an immaterial reality distinct from the body, or is it entirely physical?
Positions
- Epiphenomenalism
Mental states are non-physical by-products of brain processes: the brain causes them, but they cause nothing physical in return.
- Physicalism
Everything mental is physical or wholly grounded in the physical; no immaterial mind is required.
Held by Epicureanism
- Substance Dualism
Mind and body are fundamentally distinct substances, and the mind is not reducible to the physical body.
Held by Platonism
Methods used to investigate this question
- Introspection
Introspection forms first-person judgments about one's own mental life as it is happening or has just happened, rather than by inference from behaviour or physiology.
- Thought Experiment
A thought experiment constructs an imagined case and reasons through it to isolate a principle, intuition, possibility, or conceptual consequence.